Josh Ozersky is a James Beard Award-winning food writer, B-list food personality, and noted polymath and deviant. The founder of Meatopia, he will answer all your questions on meat, food, food writing, relationships, restaurants, or cooking. He is also available for private tutorials.

I will tell you tomorrow, Francis. I haven't had any white truffles yet (the season just started), and white truffles are only worth the expense if they are great. I will have some tonight. The last couple of years they weren't great. Even if they are great, I would only buy one if it were on the small side. Truffles need to be used within a few days, and only big restaurants can get rid of them that fast. Whatever size you get, don't stint on their use. Truffles aren't something you can dole out; they have to be used in profusion or not at all.

Done! Andy is here referring to the method, made famous by Adam Perry Lang, of using the meat juice spilled on the cutting board as the base for a dressing. basically you add good olive oil, chopped up garlic, rosemary, and other good things to it, mix it all together, and massage it all over the meat. It works for every kind of meat and is to my knowledge the only method ever invented for getting all sides of meat flavored (as opposed to just the crust.) Lang's full method can be found here, along with a lot of other great meat info.

I don't blame you for dismissing my home city, Alan. You're not entirely wrong. There is a lot of bad chicken in New York. And there is a lot of good chicken in Atlanta: I just had a very fine version at JCT Kitchen and a remarkable Indian spice version at Cardamon Hill. But there is plenty of bad fried chicken in Atlanta, too, and it shares flaws common to bad chickens everywhere: overbreaded, spackle-like skin, meat dried out from deep-frying, and, most common of all, underseasoning. (I am always suspicious of chicken covered with prophylactic honey for this reason.) Speaking of seasoning, the liberal use of MSG on fried chicken is absolutely crucial, in my opinion, to great fried chicken. Fried chicken is soul food, and all soul food contains tons of MSG.

I love it when I get writing questions! Or, in this case, typing questions. Personally, I use a free MS Word clone called Open Office, but only because Word is the universal language of word processing. I use approximately 8 percent of its useless features, but it doesn't hog memory the way Word does. The best was the old WordPerfect. But that is gone, along with ALF and my credit rating.

Don, I feel your pain, having — like so many other bourbon lovers — gone though my own hopeless quest to find this fabled elixir. When I finally did get it, however, I will tell you frankly that I wasn't in love with it. Bourbon picks up a lot of wood flavor when sitting in a wooden barrel for twenty years, which is one reason it gets browner the older it is. But it can be in there too long, too, and that is the case with 20+ year-old bourbons. The Pappy 15-year-old has age without being overwooded. Better still, you can get something very like it with a lot less trouble by getting Old Weller, which is basically Pappy under a different label. (Even Julian Van Winkle suggests it to people who want Pappy but can't get it.) I am told by Trey Zoeller, the owner of Jefferson's, that his Presidential Select is in fact 21-year-old Pappy. All three whiskies are from the same barrels of "juice," not all of which was acquired by the Van Winkle family when the Stitzel-Weller distillery that made it went out of business.

I don't have a problem with chopsticks, Tim. I mean, I do, being inexpert in their use, and of the opinion that forks are just better. But I wouldn't denigrate them in public just because they are an inferior tool. I just find their use by non-Asians an odious affectation. They always announce their partiality for them — "I prefer chopsticks" — as if it some kind of sign of good breeding. Like other such claims to distinction — "I don't even take aspirin," "I'm not religious, but I consider myself spiritual," "I don't own a television," etc. — it is hollow, cheaply bought, and as hackneyed as a year-old meme. This is true for yuzu too, by the way.

Back in the day, Mary, I would have said concentrated beef and chicken demi glace, fish sauce, high-quality olive oil, and the like, but you can buy all of that stuff online now. So if you are going to a good gourmet store, as it used to be called, I would go for perishables, particularly cheese, which they will let you try in the store — and that's something you can't do online. I would especially look for hard-to-find raw-milk cheeses. Also try to get true Prime beef, well-marbled pork, and really good mushrooms, and, if they have it, high-fat butter and cream.

I have to say that I never thought of that! Nor have I ever heard of anybody doing. But it makes perfect sense. Clarified butter is used by cooks because it raises the smoking point of the stuff; you can cook it a lot hotter before it turns brown (which is OK) and then black (which isn't.) Personally, I never bother with clarifying butter. It's too much work, and I like the milk solids it requires you to separate out. They give butter a more complex, interesting taste. It's not like even clarified butter will ever get that hot. Plus, you can always cut it with olive or even grapeseed oil if need be.